First a quick insight into the gap in posts – since my last post a lot has gone on in my world. Seven countries visited, eleven states, some life issues, some awards and a lot more. Highs were unexpectedly being made a Fellow of a business education group I’ve been volunteering at and being recognized as one of FlexRadio Systems “Elmer of the Year.” Downs include losses of a niece to depression and a work colleague to cancer, and taking unwell while at sea.

So the blog was given a short shrift and let lay fallow.

Forward plans will leave space in my schedule for more regular posts.

The 2016 W9DXCC was in Schaumburg Illinois September 16th and 17th. Included was an excellent presentation by Steve N5AC on FlexRadio Systems products and prospects.

For readers not familiar with the Flex-6000 radio series, it’s SmartSDR software (version 1.9.7 as I type), accessories like the Maestro and 4o3a products, and partner software like SmartSDR for iOS and DogparkSDR for the Mac, you will want to do some catch up reading.

I’m going to presume you have a working knowledge of the present product offering and state of affairs.

Here is what I took away from the W9DXCC:

“We’ve only just begun…” – FRS has some awesome plans for SmartSDR and shared that in the 6-month sort of horizon we will see one radio supporting more than one client, integrated VPN type WAN networking, and much more….

“I’d like to teach the world to sing…” – with with an increasing percentage of ham dollars spent on SDR radio designs of various types. FRS will continue to lead as an SDR with a full ecosystem.

“Come Together…” – with tighter integration of hardware like the 4o3a Antenna, Station, Rotor and Power Genius products being able to work seamlessly with SmartSDR, very tight integration of some third-party software packages like digital programs and loggers. N1MM+ was mentioned several times.

“Different Strokes for Different Folks…” – that interfacing to a Flex-6000 by SmartSDR for Windows, SmartSDR for iOS, SmartSDR for Maestro and DogparkSDR for OSX is the groundwork for even more offerings of different ways to run your Flex-6000.

“Picture yourself on a boat on a river…,” “I’m leaving on a jet plane…,” “Somewhere, Across the Sea….” – remoting to Flex-6000 unit will become a norm. Whether from your office desk to your radio shack downstairs or from an airplane in flight over another continent to your home station, it will be easy.

Steve N5AC did shated some awesome clips demonstrating the effectiveness of the Filters and algorithms behind the WNB filter and the CESSB TX audio. I hadn’t understood why my 6700 barefoot got out better than non-flex radios with a small amp until the benefits of the algorithms putting nearly 3dB effectivity in the Flex-6700’s output was graphically shown.

The cost effectiveness of using a Flex-6000 was shown, and will greatly outdistance the competition when the Flex SOnR box launches with the Flex-6500 w/SOnR box and Flex-6300 w/SOnR box really being cost effective setups.

There was more shared and hinted, but I’ll leave it to FRS to put legs to future plans when it is right for their purposes.